The Magician
by GoWithTheFlo20
Summary: A Time Lord alone in the world is a terrible thing. When Harriet Potter regenerates at the battle of Hogwarts, nothing will ever be the same again. A runaway in a blue box, a madman haunted by drums, and a lucky girl are all that's left of the once great civilization. Yet, this is not the end. As any good Time Lord knows, all good things take time. 10th-11thDoctor/Fem!Harry/Master
1. Chapter 1

**Full Summary: **A Time Lord alone in the world is a terrible thing. When Harriet Potter regenerates at the battle of Hogwarts, nothing will ever be the same again. A first regeneration is potent, hazardous, and not one often endured alone. When the Doctor feels a shift in space and time, a swing that only the birth of a new Time Lord could cause, the chase is on. However, he's not the only one who's on the hunt. A runaway in a blue box, a madman haunted by drums, and a lucky girl are all that's left of the once great civilization. Yet, this is not the end. Only the beginning. As any good Time Lord knows, all good things take time. 10th Doctor-11th Doctor/Fem!Harry/Master

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**CHAPTER ONE:**

**The Ambitious Card Trick**

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The Ambitious Card Trick: _a magic trick in which a playing card seems to return to the top of the deck after being placed elsewhere in the deck._

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_Hermione Granger's P.O.V_

It was over. Voldemort was gone. They had _won._ Against the odds, contrary to overwhelming hardships, against death itself, Harriet Potter had triumphed. Searching across the cluttered and chaotic grounds of what was once the magnificent castle of Hogwarts, darting between families reunited, huddled in grief, mourning and rejoicing life lost and life gained, the whiff of hope was heady in the air. On the horizon, peeping out from between the gloomy trees of the forbidden forest, a new dawn was breaking, and with it, a new day came.

Hermione was crying. Hermione was laughing. Hermione was, most importantly, running. Ron Weasley's hand clasped firmly in her own trembling one. It had been hectic, that moment when Voldemort had fallen, dead, cold, like any other man, like any other _human_, on the shattered slabs of the courtyard. The remaining Deatheaters had crumbled, the head of the snake lopped off, and in the rush by the Order to detain who needed to be detained, from brothers scouting for sisters, mothers and daughters embracing, sons and fathers reassured in one another's arms, Harriet had seemingly disappeared in the mess of bodies.

Yet, Hermione was Harriet's best friend. She knew that girl better than she knew herself sometimes. And, crucially, she knew where Harriet had vanished off to. She would be somewhere high. Somewhere she could see the sky clearly and cleanly. Somewhere she would be able to watch the sunrise when, tragically, only a few hours ago, Hermione included, no one had thought she would see another dawn come and go.

Of course, as was usual, Hermione was right.

They found her perched on the ruined and wrecked ramparts, back to the castle, face to the soaring sun. Ron's hand slipped from her own as Hermione hurtled towards her in great, loping strides, feet bouncy against the rubble, as if her legs were made from springs rather than muscle and sinew and brittle bone. Harriet turned just in time to catch her, Hermione's arms coiling around the smaller girls thin shoulders, tight and stiff, and so very desperate. Harriet reeled back a step, they almost toppled, but none of that mattered.

"Oh, Harry! You're alive! You're alive!"

Watching your best friend die, as one would assume, was not a pleasant experience. Watching that friend, limp and blue and gone, be thrown to the floor like trash, by a lunatic with venom for blood, the man who had made all their lives a living hell, was salt in the wound. It had all been so very hopeless then. Miserable and bleak. Not because Harriet was the chosen one. Not because Harriet was meant to defeat the Dark Lord. Not because of some prophecy or scheme told or planned by men or women who should've known better than to use children to win their war, but because…

Because a world without Harriet Potter, Hermione truly believed, was a world with a little less sunshine.

A decidedly dull world Hermione Granger wanted no part in. So, when Harriet had sprung back up, fished out her wand, and took her final stand, as Voldemort died and Harriet lived… _Again_, it appeared everything was right in the world. Right and good and true. Ron must have thought so too, for, uncharacteristically, he was there suddenly, hugging the two girls, squeezing just as tightly as Hermione had, his voice gravelly with scarcely controlled emotion.

"Blimey, mate. You really had us going there."

They eventually hauled away from Harriet, as all good things, and one could argue a hug was the best of all good things, must come to an end, and Hermione caught the tail end of a grimace swiftly being hidden under a lopsided smile. Harriet was in pain. She was good at hiding it, yes. She always had been. However, Hermione had become adept at reading those little twitches she gave. Still, Harriet had just revived herself, fought a battle for nearly eight hours straight, and, of course, they were all feeling a little bit sore. It was nothing to worry about.

_It wasn't. _

"Truthfully, I think I had myself fooled too. Merlin, I feel stiff. Stiff and… Fizzy and, I think, a bit nauseous. Remind me next time, if I plan on dying again, not to do so on a full stomach."

Hermione searched Harriet's face with a keen eye. There was something… Different. Yes, different. A… Ripple. A rigidity. It reminded Hermione of a balloon with too much air, the colour translucent, the pattern of a smiley face imprinted on rubber distorting, seconds away from… Popping? Popping. The insides too full and filled to be contained by something as measly as skin. That's what happened when the inside became to big for the outside. _Pop._

Nevertheless, it was definitely Harriet. Same short sawn black curls. Same evergreen eyes. Same lightning bolt scar and wonky circle glasses on an upturned nose. Same round cheeks and pointed chin and impish smile. That was her friend, alright. So, why did something sink in the very pit of Hermione's gut? It could be, she supposed, now that the wonder of having her friend alive, actually alive, was waning, the confusion of exactly how that came to be was beginning to rear its ugly head. Hermione had never been good at handling the unknown or not having an answer.

"How did you do it? Did Dumbledore leave you something? A spell? Time-turner? The cloak? Was it the cloak?"

Harriet frowned at her, eyes rolling up to the brightening sky as if it could give her the answer. Perhaps, if the sky was feeling kind, all of the answers. Hermione chewed her lip. It had to be something, didn't it? And if it was something, a spell or hex, or book or object, then maybe that was what was hurting her friend, what made her seem, well, like she was swelling but not swelling right out of her body at the same time.

Or, conceivably, Hermione was overtired, overworked, and in dire need of a good sit down.

"I just… Came back."

Now it was Hermione's turn to frown deeply, sluggishly enunciating each word with the carefulness of incredulity.

"Just… Came… Back…"

As if it made perfect sense, which, with Harriet, it likely did to her and no one else, she grinned and shrugged her shoulders, her gaze falling back to a frazzled mud-streaked Hermione. _It's sunny today, isn't it? The post has come. I've brushed my teeth. I just came back from the dead. _Genial. Mundane. Completely, wholly, irrevocably bonkers.

"Yeah. I just came back."

Hermione shook her head violently in disbelief. For all these years, through all these trials, one thing remained constant. Harriet Potter was an odd one. She always had been. If she weren't running about on some half-baked scheme on a hair trigger, half-mad, half-genius, half-something else entirely, that somehow, ironically, worked, though Harriet only swore she was just lucky, she was baffling everybody around her.

She liked to draw, Hermione thought. Or, more aptly, Harriet _needed_ to draw. Intricate sketches and illustrations lining any paper or parchment she got her hands on, and sometimes a wall or floor or her own arms if she could find no paper, as if she needed to let the image out, exorcise it from that dense mind of hers. Cityscapes of great domed cities with high spires, foreign and beautiful. Machinery Hermione had never seen before, couldn't even dream of, and, really, couldn't hope to fathom even when Harriet would tell her what it was or what it did. Swirls and spirals of codes and numbers, never ending, winding. On a few occasions, she'd accidentally handed one or two of them in for homework. Even McGonagall, the smartest witch Hermione knew, didn't know what they were and couldn't make heads or tails of it. And what did Harriet say when questioned?

_They just come to me sometimes. _

Rarely, she had dreams. Peculiar dreams. Hermione only knew because the two girls shared a dormitory. She'd wake up laughing sometimes, yet, crying or shouting more often than not, in a language Hermione couldn't understand. Maybe it was no language at all. Harriet never remembered her dreams. Hermione had asked her once, what the one word she kept hearing meant. Harry had looked at her blankly, puzzled in a way that reminded Hermione of a toddler. Innocent and endearing.

_I have no fucking clue what Dalek means, Hermione. Sounds German. Why? Please tell me this isn't going to be on our O.W.L's . I'm already bored with the laws of transfiguration. Laws? Laws? Who needs laws in magic, anyway? It's all a loud of bullshit if you ask me._

Then, most extraordinary of all, were those little instances where Harriet seemingly… _Knew _things_. _She'd pull you away from the library bookcase right before, as luck would have it, it fell and slammed on top of your head. Without looking, she'd tell you to tie your shoelace or you'd fall down the moving stairs, only for you to forget and right as you trip, exactly where she said you would, on your way to potions, a hand would shoot out of the crowd and grab you, balance you, Harry grinning from the throng with a sing-song I told you. Just as you were lifting that cauldron cake up to bite, she'd whistle._ I wouldn't do that if I were you. You're going to get sick and miss a lesson on Druid Runes. Runes that will come up in the next test._ Oddly enough, Druid runes would be on the next test, and as you glanced back, frowning, confused, wondering if the professor had unfairly given Harriet the heads up, she'd only wink at you from across the room.

Yet, regardless of all this, or because of it, coming back to life was far flung from drawings, dreams and divination. It was in a league of its own. As Hermione knew her flaws intimately, her need to know all the answers a crippling one, this was not something she could easily let go of. Of course, she could have been less shrill about it.

"People don't just come back to life, Harry! Not even witches and wizards! That's impossible!'"

Harry's mouth opened, white teeth glinting, and Hermione knew what was coming. The same thing that came every time Hermione, or anybody, said something was impossible to Harry. _How can impossibility be impossible, when I'm and possible is in it? It's almost like it's daring me to try!_ Thankfully, before the two witches could break down into an old argument about semantics and how vernacular doesn't work that way, Ron smoothly butted in.

"Leave it, Hermione. We'll figure it out later. Come on, you're looking a little peaky there, Harry. Let's get you inside. Coming back from the dead can't be that easy, can it?"

He was right. Obviously, he was right. There was a sheen to her now, sweat glistening on brow-bone, that flowing but not flowing still undulating just underneath the surface. For a moment, Hermione felt guilty. So very apologetic. Here Harry stood, grinning through the pain, having just survived the greatest battle their kind had ever known, and Hermione was interrogating her. Doggedly, she stomped down on any questions, on the meandering concern nibbling at her intestines, and began to follow the pair back to Hogwarts. It was over. Voldemort was gone. They had _won._

"Easier than McGonagall's detentions, I'll tell you that."

Ron chuckled, so did Hermione and Harry, but the latter's cut off steeply into a sharp intake of breath. Harry's hand shot to her stomach, wrapping into her torn shirt, pressing in tightly as her steps stumbled and veered off to the side a tad.

"You alright there, Harry?"

Hermione asked as she stretched for her friend, but Harry waved it off before the limb could reach her arm, determinedly walking forth, talking over her shoulder.

"Just a stitch. A headache too. Who the hell is playing those drums? Tell them to stop it. I can't think straight."

Hermione's pace puttered off to a halt pathetically, Ron tumbling into her side as he too froze, knocking into her side. Harry, bless her, carried right on walking back, one, two, three, seven steps before she realized she was walking, or limping, alone. Sluggishly, she stopped too, as she turned to face them, one eyebrow tilted high underneath her scar. She was almost hunched over, with that hand pressed into her side as it was.

"What drums?"

Ron's head cocked to the side, as he echoed Hermione's hesitancy.

"Yeah, I don't hear any drums?"

Harriet glanced between them, from Hermione to Ron, Ron to Hermione, and back again, chuckling a laugh that gently perished to silence like a spluttering candle caught in the wind. Her smile strained on her face as she waited, hush drifting, as if she expected them to tell her _got you! _and say it was the twins or Ginny, or perhaps even the centaurs in the forest celebrating. When nothing of the like came, she blinked rapidly at them, once again a child, once again naive and charming.

"You can't? Really? They're nearly deafening! It's all I can do but not have my head bloody burst. Shite… They're getting louder! Are you sure you can't hear them!? How can you not hear them?! They're screaming!"

As if to extenuate her point, her hand darted away from her stomach, palms to ears as she rubbed vigorously, head tilted in such a way as if she could scrub the noise right out her head and have it fall out her other ear. It was true too, since they had caught up with Harriet, she had been speaking a little… Louder. But, Hermione thought, that was normal. _Normal. _They had been in a battle. Explosions had gone off. Ravenclaw Tower had come down with the worst bang Hermione had ever heard, and Harry had been close to the crash site at the time.

"Harry, maybe we should sit you down and get someone to-"

Hermione took a lone step forward, but Harriet backed away, ambling off to the stairs that would lead to the courtyard bellow.

"I'm fine. Honestly. I might have just popped an eardrum. Voldemort did clobber me around the head at one point. Let's just find Molly and Arthur, and get out of here to-"

She never made it to the stairs. She got a few feet away before she grunted and spasmed, contorting horribly as if someone had crucio'd her. Harriet's legs gave out from beneath her and she went sinking to the floor on bent knee and skinned elbow. Hermione dived for her, hollering.

"Harry!"

Hermione collapsed alongside her, almost twisting her ankle on a loose bit of roof tile blown onto the battlement from the attack on Gryffindor turret. She thought her shin might be bleeding, but she could not feel it or care to. Harry was on her hands and knees, pushing, heaving, falling all over again when the strength refused to stay in her loose trembling limbs. Hermione grappled for her shoulders, encircled an arm around her chest, hoisted her up, this little newborn fawn skating on ice, and plopped her down, leaning Harriet heavily on her side, head lolling on her shoulder, up, sitting. She had stopped struggling, but she was shaking something fiercely, mumbling to herself.

"Dizzy… Dizzy… That's all… That's all…"

Hermione rolled her head back from lolling to the side, spotted the blown pupils, so wide her eyes were almost black, pale, so pale, and burning to the touch. Something was wrong. Something was dreadfully wrong. No. _No!_ They had… They had _won._ It was _over._ Finished. The sun was rising. A new day was coming. They were meant to-…

They were meant to be happy now. They were meant to grow old and grey and cranky. Harry would keep drawing her strange doodles, running off for her next big adventure at the drop of a dime, Ron would stuff his mouth to his cheeks bulged and moan about a quidditch match lost, and Hermione would exasperatedly chuckle over a scroll with a nice mug of peppermint tea in her hand and marvel, lovingly, how she ended up with these two for friends.

"Harry… You're hand… You're hands… They're…"

At Ron's unsteady voice, Hermione zipped a glimpse down to Harry's lap, where her legs laid skewed on the remains of the floor, one bent awkwardly over a small rock, hands resting lifelessly in her lap. Hermione's voice pitched high, eyes wide and, for the first time since she was a child, she stuttered.

"T-They're glowing."

Vivid golden light seeped from the very pores of her skin, creeping up her wrist and splintering across her arm like vines, smoke wisps shifting and swaying in the air. Mist and twists and searing golden heat. Harriet lifted one shivering hand up, flexed her fingers, furled and unfolded, watched as the golden light left an impression of her hand before it dissipated into the air. Her gaze met Hermione's, voice croaking, words gliding on the golden light pouring out between pallid lips.

"Well… That doesn't seem normal."

She tried to joke, but the gasping cough carried with a puff of golden smoke cut her off brutally. The golden light was there too, smouldering out the corners of her eye, blazing in the pupil and irises. Hermione couldn't tear her gaze away, it was bright, almost too bright, too hot, it was hurting to touch her, to be so close, but she couldn't look away. She could, however, she found, call frantically to Ron.

"Get McGonagall! Remus! Molly! Anybody! Ronald! Go now!"

Hermione didn't see Ron go, but she heard the pound of his heavy footsteps beating on the brick. Harriet contorted again, bone creakingly, bent right out her arms with a half-bitten scream and all Hermione could do was lower her to the ground, hold on, watch as her dear friend crooked and crumpled and writhed hard enough she nearly arched herself up of the floor. Her neck craned back, tendons taut, snapping beneath the skin, and Hermione saw the golden light inching up the pale column.

"Stay with me Harry. Help is coming. Do you hear me? Help is coming. Just hold on a bit longer. We'll-… We'll fix this. You see. Everything's going to be fine. Harry? Harry, can you hear me? Please, Harry, don't do this. Not now. Please. Just hold on, okay? Help is coming. Please."

Harriet wilted, sagging, breath fast and hard and faltering, and Hermione jostled for her hand, crushed, kept, held. Those glowing eyes floated up to the sky above them, glistening, gleaming, and then… Then she was smiling. Broadly. Toothily. Hermione had to drop her hand. It was too hot. Blistering.

"I see the stars. I can see them all. Can you see them, Hermione? They're beautiful… So beautiful… Countless stars… Endless wonder. I think I would like to go there one day."

She's smiling. She's smiling and dying and erupting in golden light and, yes, yes it's beautiful and tragic, and something warm and wet trickled down Hermione's cheek and dripped from her quivering chin. The crack of apparition echoed out behind her. Hermione whirled around, spotted Remus and McGonagall, as war torn and bloody as she and Harriet, standing between the wreckage and ruin. They saw her too. They saw Harriet on the ground. Glowing.

"Help! Please! It's Harry! I think she's dying!"

Remus sprinted for the clustered duo. Hermione cried. Harry thrashed. McGonagall lifted her wand. It was all too late.

"Harriet!"

Harriet wrenched one last time, and Hermione went sailing through the air on a flare of unseen force, boiling heat. Hermione crashed into professor Lupin, he barely managed to catch her as the two plunged to the ground in a heap of entangled extremities and winded groans. The two wrestled for a moment, slipping and sliding and elbowing as they fought to a stand. It hurt, boy did it hurt, but she was okay. Alive. By the muted swearing of Lupin, he was too. Squinting, wheezing, confused and terrified, Hermione glanced up just in time to see Harriet…

Explode.

Light, gilded, unadulterated and pure, exploded about them in a surge of a star going supernova, in the middle, the spectre of her friend stretched and scattered. Hermione grimaced, hand racing to her face, to shield herself from the blinding light. She could barely see McGonagall guard her own face with her arm, or Remus crouch within himself. Then, as fast as it came, it faded. Gone.

Hermione briskly blinked away the white spots obscuring her vision. Gradually, her hand dropped from her face. No one spoke. No one dared breath. There Harriet was, partially buried by a bolder, one leg peaking out from behind the debris. Still. Silent. Away. Hermione hobbled forward, closer, sobbing, aching, reaching. No. Not like this. It wasn't fair. It wasn't-

The body lurched up, over the bolder, with a dramatic gasp, as if the person had been drowning, sitting up tall and proud and, unmistakably, perplexed as they looked all around them with stunned, curious eyes.

But it wasn't Harriet. Not Hermione's Harriet. It was all… Wrong. Her hair was curly, yes, but longer, brushing shoulder not earlobe, no more black but a red that touched on burnished copper. Her face was not right, away was the suppleness, the soothing lines and slopes, replaced by a fox-like grace of keen angles and wiry strength, and… Dimples. The girl had dimples. Her brows were too thick, her legs too long, her body too thin, nimble and lithe and-

Silver eyes. Silver bloody eyes and-

It wasn't Harriet where Harriet had been and-

A stranger. A total and utter stranger.

Hermione spoke without meaning to, her mind a jumbled box of rattling, displaced thoughts.

"Harry? Is that you?"

The silver eyes locked on her. One eyebrow cocked high in a slant Hermione knew all too well. A different body, a different face, different eyes and a different gaze. Yet, somehow, someway, Hermione knew, just knew, that was, one way or another, Harriet.

"Who else would it bloody be? Did I pass out? Wait… Is that my voice? Why do I sound so strange? What accent is that? What-… Blah…. Blugh… Bloo… My mouth feels funny… Toothpaste… Toooooothpaste… Toothpaaaaaaste… See? My tongue…"

Her hands bolted to her face, tugging and stretching the skin, probing into mouth and yanking lip, sliding up to nose and pulling ruthlessly. In any other circumstance, with any other person, Hermione might have wept. Instead, she laughed, she laughed so loud and so long it hurt, because, really, when it came to Harriet, it was either that or lose your bloody mind.

"Why are you all looking at me like that?"

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**Would You Like To See More? **

**A.N: **I've been sitting on this fic for a while now, a long while truthfully, as it's actually one of the first fics I ever wrote. It's a lot different to what I normally write, a bit more whimsical and free, and I think that was the reason I've hesitated in posting it for so long. However, I had a lot of fun writing it and planning it out, and thought if anybody else might enjoy it, even just one person, that's reason enough to send it out into the big wide web! So, here it is! I really hoped you enjoyed chapter one, and if you have a spare moment or two, please drop a review.

**Timeline: **As we can see, it's set just after the final battle of Hogwarts, and in Doctor Who-verse, this fic is set just at the end of Doomsday season 2, but before the episode Runaway Bride and the introduction of Donna Noble. Expect heavy AU and huge liberties taken from both canons.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO:**

**The Assistant's Revenge.**

_**Part One**_

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The Assistant's Revenge: _The Assistant's Revenge is a transposition illusion in which two performers change places._

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_Hermione Granger's P.O.V_

A staggering gasp, a jarring jolt, and then Harriet was up, astounded and dazed.

"Something's not right."

Yes, Hermione thought. And that something is _you_. Your face. Your physique. Your voice. Your hair. Even the way you smell. There was nothing familiar left. Not a single scar or freckle or twang Hermione could see and think, yes, there, that's old Harry. That's _my_ Harry.

Some might say she was overreacting, and indeed, Hermione would agree strongly with those who did. She _was_ reacting excessively. Unreasonably. Nevertheless, that didn't mean she could stop herself from doing so. Knowing how you should react and how you _actually_ reacted were two completely separate spheres of emotions. One ruled by calm, comforting logic and the other by that bastard known as heart.

There, gaping at a strangers face, Hermione couldn't help but feel, somehow, someway, she had lost her best friend to this… Somebody.

But, that didn't make sense, did it? Whatever this was, whatever nefarious plot had befallen Harriet this time in her short life of endless reprehensible schemes, there was a way to get back to the start, reverse it, fix it, wasn't there? There had to be. There _always _was.

Hermione came from a world of glamours and Polyjuice, an alteration in appearance was nothing new. Yet, this was different. So different. With magic, with potion or spell or rite, the real person, the familiarity, was still there, skulking underneath the exterior, easy to spot if you had the eye for it, just momentarily hidden. Momentarily out of reach. Momentarily switched. _Momentarily._

Just like, hopefully, Harry's befuddlement was temporary.

She was out if it, you see. Absolutely and utterly out of it. She had been unconscious for a full crawling, painfully long eight hours. She had questioned what they were looking at, raised from the rubble like some bowed baby bird taking their first flight, took a single step, and promptly fell flat on her face. Comatose. No one had heard a peep from her since.

McGonagall assured everyone she was sleeping, exhausted by whatever it was that had taken her over. Remus fretted that she was sick, poisoned or bewitched by a Deatheater. Ron was, oddly, silent but vigil. Hermione didn't know what the fuck was going on apart from the small little matter that her friend had gone and bloody swapped bodies.

There was no help coming either.

Wizarding Britain, one of the leading bastions of wizardry kind, was in complete disarray from the war. Hogwarts itself was in shambles, virtually demolished by the final battle. What little remained of the Order was out in the field, in a frenzied flurry to round up any and all straggling Deatheaters who had flew from the frontline, before their trails went cold as they absconded abroad, and the Order would be obliged to cross sixty miles of red tape to get them.

The Ministry of Magic was in closure. The ministers of the Wizengamot either having bolted before the final battle, in hiding, or enlisted on both sides. A large chunk of those who joined in on the fray, Hermione would guess, were dead now, and those who were hiding, she supposed, would not be so willing to come out of it to face charges of deserting their posts in a time of war.

The goblins of Gringotts were under lockdown, likely to be seized in a lengthy investigation in the months to come for funding Voldemort and his merry bunch of racist cunts. Other wizarding communities of the world had severed contact, migration and admission in concern extremists would flood from Britain to their own countries, and with them, bring the beginning rumbles of war.

Saint Mungo's, perhaps Harry's best chance at help, was desolate. Healers, with their vows of doing no harm, had attempted to remain neutral in the war. Neutrality Voldemort had, predictably, turned his nose up at. Persecuted and hunted, the few that had survived the first wave of extermination had fled their homeland for asylum in Bulgaria or America. It would take time for news to reach them, news they could return home, safely, without fear of death and torture awaiting them.

Wizarding Britain, for all intents and purposes, was in full blown black-out.

Furthermore, McGonagall had raised a very real, very palpable worry. In this vortex of disaster and devastation, should Harriet's sudden, well, not-so-Harriet state be made known? She was the chosen one, the face of the Order and their struggle against Voldemort and what he stood for, what would happen if that face was abruptly hauled away? What if, in the bedlam the final battle had unleashed, the paranoid gaze of wizarding Britain, in a bid to stop anything like this ever happening again, pointed to her?

Emotions were too raw and wounds too new currently for anybody to have a clear head.

Harry, whether anybody wanted to verbally admit it or not, had been a _Horcrux._ When that nugget leaked to the public at large, for it would, it always did, suspicion would be bestowed for the simple weight of what that word brought to the table. Adding shape-shifting, and Merlin knows what else, onto the toppling tower would be lighting the powder keg under Harry's arse, and expecting it not to flow her new face completely off.

Hermione loathed the politics of it all, but, to a degree, she could understand it. She had seen how quick the public had turned rabid on Harry before. They were all skating on thin ice, and witches and wizards had been assassinated and executed for a lot less than Harry's seemingly impossible escapades.

Frustratingly, no one had any definitive answers.

In the end, deciding on a wait and see policy for now, they had smuggled Harriet under invisibility cloak to the headmasters office, the one place untouched by war. There, Remus conjured a book into a sofa, rested an unconscious Harriet upon it, and waited. Wait and see if this, whatever _this _was, reversed itself. Wait and see if her condition got sorrier or improved. Wait and see if she woke up by herself. Wait and see and wait some more. Hermione Jean Granger was a Gryffindor.

She didn't _do_ waiting.

Still, eight hours later, eight hours of everybody butting in and quarrelling over what this could possibly be, what in the name of Morgana had happened, Ron having come back from seeing his family home with the excuse of helping McGonagall clear out remaining students from the battlefield, obviously still half asleep and looking worse for wear, here her best friend with a strangers face was, at least awake and aware now.

Before much more could be said or done, Remus, who had been previously eroding a line into the fine rug beneath his feet with his incessant pacing, hurried to her. Stooping down on one knee at her flank, he gingerly laid his hands on her shoulders and tried valiantly to get the wandering gaze to stick to him. It didn't work. Harriet was too busy soaking in the room with a perplexed scowl.

"Harry, please, concentrate. Did you touch anything? Eat anything? Did a spell from Voldemort hit you? Anything you can remember? Anything at all?"

Ultimately, Harry's meandering eye locked onto Remus. She scanned him swiftly, a keen up and down motion, and something that glinted like recognition lit like a spark in her eyes. Hope flashed warm and heady in the complex of Hermione's chest. Harry _knew_ Remus. She _remembered _Remus. That was a good sign, wasn't it? However, that slight flicker of hope didn't live long. Harry reeled back. Affronted.

"Concentrate? Remus! I am _not _diluted!"

Oh, sweet Merlin's myth. Was she serious? Yes. Yes she was. Deadly. Harriet reached up and swiped Remus's hands from her shoulders, and, in his shock, he let her go as she swung off the sofa unexpectedly with a flail of limbs and copper curls. As soon as any weight was on her long legs, she went slumping to the floor, slipping, struggling desperately to regain her balance. She threw her arms out wide, like a tightrope walker, and froze with her feet braced far.

"Oops. Elongated legs. I have longer legs? Spindly like a spider. How do tall people walk? From the feet or the hips? Haha, look at how much room I've got in here! Watch!"

As if things couldn't be worse, Harry was, in the middle of the headmaster's office, rolling her hips as if she was hula hooping. Hermione groaned deeply. Harry may be awake now, but perhaps Hermione had been too quick in believing she was anything similar to alert.

Coherent? Intelligible? Rational? Anything that could remotely help them right now? Unmistakably not. Whatever it was that caused this… Change, it was obviously affecting her mind too. Harry's laughter cut off surprisingly, as did her little impromptu dance, as she vehemently shook her head and pulled herself together with a lively full body shiver, like a great dog juddering after a bath.

"No. No dancing. Not yet. Something's different. Incorrect. Can't you feel it?"

McGonagall primly coughed into her tight fist as she stood from behind the headmasters desk in a breeze of starchy emerald robes, regarding Harry with a dark, kind eye from below her severe brows.

"Miss Potter, you were involved in an incident. There have been some… Changes. We are trying to help you-… Are you listening at all?"

Hermione wanted to laugh, because, no, clearly Harry wasn't listening. When had she ever listened to anybody? Particularly now, partly out her mind with Merlin knows what? Love Potion? No, that wouldn't change her appearance. Botched Polyjuice? No, she would have changed as soon as it was in her system, and Hermione, herself, had been with Harry on the battlements and no drink or food had passed her lips. It would have worn off by now as well. So what had happened to her friend?

And how could Hermione get _her _Harry back?

Nevertheless, Harry didn't seem to rightly care. Not for their anxious stares, nor the thick atmosphere, as she circled to the desk, eyes searching, grinned, and shoved her hand into the bowl of lemon drops McGonagall kept in honour of Dumbledore. Before anyone could stop her, she was cramming a handful into her mouth and chewing with a snap and a chomp. Her face, that shiny, new alien face screwed up tightly, nose wrinkled and nostrils flared, and then she hastily part sneezed semi-spat yellow dust across the table, splattering McGonagall's pristine robes.

"Disgusting! Vile! Why do you keep poison on the desk? Are you trying to kill me? Nope. Not them. They're positively revolting, but it's not them. Something else then."

It was tricky to comprehend Harry with her tongue lolling out her mouth as she wiped and rubbed at it to get rid of the lemon drops, lifting the hem of her tattered, too small shirt, to scrub away any last remains. Yet, Hermione did understand, and Hermione's heart plummeted. In part because it was rude, extremely vulgar, to spit food, most of all right at your headmistress, and Hermione Granger was a woman of manners, but because… Because Harriet Potter _loved _lemon drops. It was always the first sweet the girl would buy from Honeydukes, and buy them in bags she would.

Exactly how much of her friend had changed?

No. It was still Harry. It _had_ to be. Somewhere, in there, perhaps still sleeping, her friend lay unseen. She was just confused. Hermione had to believe that because, well, she had nothing else. Her parents were a world away, obliviated. They had lost so many good people already. Snape. Dobby. Sirius. Angela. Dean. Moody. Albus. Hogwarts was rather razed. The universe wouldn't be so cruel to take Harry from her too, would it? Definitely not. Nevertheless, Ron seemed to be of a different mind to Hermione as, finally, he made his presence known from the corner of the room with a cautious question.

"Harry, is it _really_ you?"

Harry scoffed, dropping to the floor to-… Sniff at the rug. Plucking out a bit of lint, a broken bit of pebble by the looks of it, she held it up close to her face, and-… Bloody hell, licked it.

"Granite and concrete mix. What are you doing here? We don't have concrete or granite at Hogwarts, only marble and sandstone."

She flicked it away and crawled across the floor, peering underneath the seats and desks, poking at chair leg and floorboard and, right then, Hermione thought she felt a sob stealing up the barrel of her throat, lodging like a cindering coal to burn her voice box away. Harry wasn't wearing her glasses and she was seeing just fine and, fuck, who the hell was this person? This person who didn't like lemon drops, who crawled across floors and licked gravel, who _could_ lick stone and tell you what bloody kind it was, and-

"Of course it's me!... I think. Not there either."

_Calm._ Hermione needed to calm down. This, it was nothing. Nothing at all. Harry was drugged. Intoxicated or mentally blitzed. Harry had been odd to begin with. What were a few more quirks in the grand scheme of things? It would wear off and old Harry, Hermione's best friend, would come back. _She would. _McGonagall tutted.

"You_ think,_ Miss Potter?"

For the first time since she had lept from the sofa and commenced this madness, Harry became still and, mercifully, curiously lucid. She gradually sat up by the chair, feet folded below her, and stared down hard at her hands.

"I feel… _More. _Like a finger isn't aware of the person it's attached to, but a person can feel their finger. I was a finger, now I'm a person. It's… Confusing. I can't-… My thoughts are muddled. I-… Food. I need food. Actual food! And sleep! I _need _sleep! I woke up too soon. I don't know what that means, I don't know how I know that precisely, I don't know how I know a lot of things, but I do and it's-… It's terrifying. All these thoughts in my head and I can't hear-… Like a thousand rivers rushing to the sea, and I can see them all and-… I should be sleeping. I'm not ready yet. What does that even mean? _Not ready?_ I don't know, still, It hurts. It bloody hurts. But I can't sleep, not now. No! Something…"

She broke, bolted up to a stand, voice like thunder and lightning and hail. A hurricane swathed in flesh.

"What is _amiss _here?! Something's different. Something that _shouldn't _be different. Is it my accent? Where did this Irish strum come from, aye? Did I have it before?"

Hermione's answering chuckle was dry, sombre, and it crackled and crunched like autumn leaves beneath boot.

"Harry, don't you think we have more pressing matters to solve rather than the whodunit of your brogue? You seemingly altered your entire DNA structure, if that's even vaguely what we can call whatever it is swimming in your blood now. I mean… You have two hearts. Two hearts! Who has two hearts?!"

Remus scratched at the back of his neck coyly as he hoisted himself to an awkward stand.

"Actually, Harriet's always had two hearts. James had two as well. So did Lily, I believe. We assumed it might have been a Potter aberration. The Blacks with their silver eyes, the Malfoys with their blonde hair, the Potter's and their hearts. Reproducing with magical creatures is common practice in the wizarding world. Two hearts wouldn't be the oddest thing we've gained from such couplings, and Lily could have very well been some distant, removed, fourth cousin twice forgotten. Muggleborn in all but far ancestry. Whichever reason, it is not the hearts that are a problem here, but, well, excuse me Harry, everything else."

He ran a tired hand down his face, palm pulling at shabby beard.

"I ran diagnostic spells while you were sleeping. Every one I know, and I know a lot, and a few I found from the books in this very office. I couldn't understand even a fifth of the readings I got back. I've never seen anything like it. By all accounts, something like you shouldn't exist."

Brilliant. Undeniably marvellous. Remus Lupin, their best hope for any answers, what with his extensive knowledge of the healing and transmutation magics due to his, in polite terms, condition, didn't even know what to make of _this _Harry. In response to being told she shouldn't exist, Harry lost what little control she had on her temper.

"Why is no one listening to me? I know I sound crazy right now, Merlin knows I feel it, but you have to listen! Something is wrong! It's not my accent. Not me. Not you lot either. Something's wrong with this _room_. Something that wasn't here before. Something new. Something borrowed. Something blue-… Wait, no, that's a poem, isn't it? Yes, a poem you give at funerals. Or is it weddings? Aren't they the same? Stop! Don't answer that. I'm getting distracted again. Think, think, think, think! But it _is_ this room!"

She was spinning. Feverish. Despairing. Hunting. Then she stopped. Just stopped. Staring down the way passed Hermione's right shoulder, towards the spiralled staircase of the entrance to the office. She glanced behind her and then snapped her head back around, right to the magical stairs once more. Her head moved, slinking to the side, angling. She raised her hand to her face, concealed her eyes, and then snapped the hand away within seconds, as if she was playing peek-a-boo.

"Huh. That's new…"

Right. That does it. She was completely off her rocker. There was no other explanation. Remus tried to get in front of her, to regain her attention, but Harry wasn't having any of it as she jutted her head around his shoulder to peep behind Hermione somewhere in the distance.

"Harriet, if we're going to fix this, if we are going to help you, you need to sit still and think. You need to answer our questions, okay? I know it might be hard to-"

"No. Now get out of the way."

Remus curled back as if she had struck him.

"No?"

Hermione edged closer. Harry was becoming frustrated and annoyed, and when Harry became irritated or upset, she was liable to do something reckless. In the plainly overwhelmed and exhausted state she was in, she was likely to hurt herself in the process.

"Harry, it's going to be okay. We're really trying to help. You just need to sit down and answer our questions and before you know it, everything will be back to normal and-"

"But no one is asking the important questions!"

Still, she glared right passed Hermione as if the girl wasn't standing right in front of her, practically begging. That _hurt_. That hurt a lot more than Hermione could ever justly articulate. Biting down fiercely on her tongue, Hermione took in a prolonged, suffering breath and tried once more.

"And what are those important questions then, Harry?"

Eyes dead ahead, Harry prowled closer, and still, her eyes never strayed from the corner in the beyond.

"What is wrong with this room? It takes you a while to spot it, doesn't it? But you know something isn't quite right as soon as you entered. There's a chill in the air. A sense of being watched. Stalked by the shadows. You brush it off, but the niggling never fully goes away. That's because you _are _being watched. We're _all _being watched right this second. Oh, I see you now. You don't like that, do you? You don't like being _seen_."

Without looking, Harry deliberately reached up, grasped Hermione's limp hand, and began walking backwards, purposefully dragging Hermione with her. Her skin was still too warm. Scorching really. Whatever it was that had affected her before was still transforming her now. The process, whatever that be, wasn't over. Step by slow step Harry lead her away from the office entrance Hermione had been situated by. She sounded calm, strangely relaxed.

There was a type of fear, the nastiest sort, that didn't make you scream. It didn't make you faint. It didn't make you run or fight or fly. This kind of dread hollowed the world around you, shrank all awareness down to the pound of a heartbeat, the prickle of skin and the awful sudden drop in a bottomless stomach. It trapped you in your own body. Hermione, tired, frazzled, Hermione, felt just that style of fear right then as Harry spoke once more in that eerily calm new voice of hers, lilting and lyrical.

"You want to know the important questions? Riddle me this, then, Hermione. The entrance statue to the headmaster's office was a phoenix, wasn't it? Because, if so, how does a statue change by itself? And, most importantly, since when can a statue move when no one is looking?"

Tensely, muscles locking in refusal but mind screaming for her to do so, Hermione turned her head to peek at the entrance no one had been observing. She jerked from Harry, stumbled, and nearly crashed into Ron as she tried to back even further away.

There it was.

A statue.

Standing partway in the door, inching upon her back, where the bronze phoenix should have been but wasn't, reaching in with a gnarled granite hand, stood an… Angel. A stone angel. A fucking angel with a screaming face and fangs. Blink. It was closer. Shifted. Grey hands over face, great wings spread. Ron swore loudly and toppled into the table beside them, knocking over priceless artifacts to shatter on the floor. No one cared, because something more precious went falling with them.

Harry.

"Too soon. Shouldn't be awake. Had to warn…I tried. I'm sorry. Too weak."

Remus caught her before she hit the floor, and with one last breath, more gold glow spilling out, she was gone again. Sleeping. Away. Relief untold swamped Hermione like a tidal wave. Relief and joy and, bloody hell, pride. Why? Because, yes, Harry was out of it. Yes, she was different. That wasn't Harry's face. That wasn't Harry's physique. That wasn't her voice or her hair or her eyes. That wasn't her smell. And no, Hermione could not look to Harry and see a familiar scar or freckle, yet, at hand, with two professors', an unconscious Harry, a bewildered Ron, and a moving statue, Hermione could, finally, point to Harry and think, yes, that's her. That's _my _Harry.

Injured, sick, evidently inebriated on something, Harry had sprung forth just to warn them. Putting other's above herself, well, there was nothing more Harry now, was there? Lemon drops or not, that was her friend. Her silly, self-sacrificing, martyrdom-complex'd, always-running-somewhere friend.

Remus lifted her into his arms, and then suddenly lurched back, swearing. The statue was inches away, reaching again. Reaching right for Harry, stone fingertips nothing but a hairbreadth away from her dangling arm. Protractedly, the little group seemed to condense in on itself, imploding into one big, safe, mass.

"Professor, what's happening? What is that thing?"

Hermione's question got no answer. Keeping an eye on the statue that shouldn't be, McGonagall flicked free her wand and ushered them closer with a weary wave of her arm.

"Together, children. Hold on tight, now."

It moved again, closer, too close, just as the crack of apparition snapped in the air and the little group dispersed from the silent office in a gut-wrenching pull. They landed in the astronomy courtyard with a thunk. Ron heaved over the pavement. Remus, jostling a spent Harry in his arms for a better hold, whirled on McGonagall.

"Could it have snuck in during the battle?"

McGonagall shook her head.

"Possibly. Or, in the chaos and destruction, it could have…Escaped. This castle holds mysteries not even we can imagine. The Chamber of Secrets was only the surface. This castle is old. Very old and places lay forgotten for centuries. Be that as it may, I do not believe it, whatever it is, to be amicable."

Helping Ron to a queasy, wobbling stand, he had never been great with apparition, Hermione glanced down pointedly to the Harry-but-not-quite-Harry.

"Do you think it's after Harriet, professor? It looked to be reaching for her."

And, Hermione supposed, when didn't it, somehow, someway, boil down to Harriet? Nine hours after the greatest fight of their lives, of their generation, and the bloody masonry of Hogwarts itself was after her now. Anew, McGonagall shook her head.

"There is no way to say currently. There are many things in the Head office that could have drawn its attention. Perhaps if we-"

Ron, however, frantically pointed over the cracked fountain, towards the clock-tower, high to its ticking face.

"I think it's after someone, because it's bloody following us!"

Hermione snapped to, and, yes, of course, in all their glorious luck, Ron was right. It stood there, still as stone and cold as damp earth, in the shadow of the little hand of the clock tower, peering out at them, looking for all it's worth as if it was about to start scaling down the tower before, thank Morgana, Ron had spotted the damned thing.

"That's not possible! Surely, it can't be that quick! We apparated! We-"

"There's more."

At Remus's deadpanned voice, Hermione circled to see him gazing down the long bridge to Hogsmeade. From the shattered remnants of the bridge, climbing up from the jagged cliff, there peeped a stone angel, clawing its way up. Sneaking right up at their backs. Remus yanked free his own wand from his arm holster, clasping Harry tight to his chest, aimed it straight and true at the statue's snarling face, and shot off a Bombarda.

It did nothing.

The angel didn't even sway.

"They're made of Stone. _Only _stone. They're not even charmed. Then how are they moving? Why isn't magic working? If we-"

Hermione, belatedly, noticed Ron watching Remus. Saw McGonagall listening attentively too, gaze on Remus and his on the bridge. Then, she heard Harry in her head, murmuring in that calm curious voice. _How can a statue move when no one is looking? _A chill ran down her spine. Icy cold. Harry had been correct. No one had listened to her. They still weren't listening to her, were they?

At once, she whirled around. She shrieked. It was there, the clock tower angel, an inch away with its terrible, terrible face. Frantically, she backed away, rushing with speech as, at her cry of alarm and fear in the air, Remus, Ron and McGonagall went to face her.

"No! Don't all look! Ron, watch the one on the bridge! Don't take your eyes off it! The clock Tower one's moved. They move when we're not looking. When we blink. That's what Harry was trying to tell us! They don't like to be seen."

Backing away, Hermione bumped into Remus, but she dared not take her eyes of that dreadful, granite face. Enraged. It looked so angry. Hateful and furious and sinister. Her own wand was in her hand in a heartbeat, courage in her trembling palm. She fired spell after spell after spell. Nothing worked. Not even a crack. A splinter. A chip. It stood there, staring at her.

Blindly, keeping his own unwavering gaze on the stone angel ahead of them, Remus was shuffling an unconscious Harry into her arms. Hermione couldn't hold her properly. The girl was bigger than her now. Tall and lanky and long limbed. Still, she held onto Harry as best as she could, draped across her side with a loose arm wrapped around Hermione's shoulders, ginger head slouching by Hermione's neck. She felt the flutter of Harry's breath heat the thin skin there, along with it came a streak of gold.

"Get to Grimmauld place. Go anywhere. Keep Harry safe. We'll be there shortly."

Refusal was hot and sour on Hermione's tongue, tart like bile.

"Remus, no! We don't know what they want or what they'll do to you or-"

McGonagall, who had taken to watching the one by the bridge with Ron, snatched the younger boy by the scruff of his collar and shoved him towards the two girls, voice stern and unforgiving.

"Go now, Miss Granger! That is an order. We'll watch them for as long as we can before we leave. We'll be right behind you. Stick together."

Harry wouldn't have left McGonagall or Remus behind. Harry would do the impossible and somehow fix it all with a laugh and a smile and, in the end, they would have all laughed about the whole thing over a good ol' cup of tea and biscuits. But Hermione wasn't Harry. Harry, herself, wasn't presently Harry exactly either. Hermione Granger was a woman who followed rules, went by the book, and, chiefly, listened to her professors.

So, she seized Ron's hand, and with a subdued sorry and a crack, the trio was gone. In their wake, hidden from view by their forms no longer shielding it, was another stone angel stretching.

* * *

_Anyplace in Time and Space_

In another life, with a different face, the Doctor once had a very solemn conversation. Dear Rose, dear, wild Rose had asked him if that was it. The end of it, the Time War? He had nodded, for there had been nothing else he could do.

_I'm the only one left. I win. How about that?_ She had cocked her head in that way she was prone to do, and with the innocence of humanity flushing her cheeks red, she had pushed. _The Dalek survived. Maybe some of your people did too_. She, of course, couldn't understand. No one could. He remembered how he shook his head, the burning void inside as he tapped at his temple. _I'd know. In here. Feels like there's no one._

And wasn't that the miserable truth? _There's no one._ Nothing. Emptiness. A never-ending abyss. Even Rose was gone now. Somewhere he could not follow. The lonely wanderer alone once more. Perhaps, if Rose was here, if she could understand his life, the Time War, what he did, she would say it was, that inevitable human construct, karma. This is what he deserved.

Silence.

Gallifreyans were not telepathic in the typical sense. There was no great mental bond extending and weaving his people together as with some other races. Nevertheless, due to their proactive interactions with space and time for millennia untold, they had evolved to feel the Time Streams stitching the universe together. A billion possibilities all at once, in every moment, in every second, creating worlds and times not yet decided. Every choice not taken. Every path abandoned. Every breath not inhaled.

It was their gift as well as their curse, to feel and understand the universe in a continuous and relentless cascade of time and undulating space. There was no cause and effect to a Gallifreyan. Those were human notions. It was a circle, an orb, a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey-… Stuff.

It was through this gift, this elaborate and multidimensional labyrinth, a Gallifreyan functioned and lived. It wasn't so much as psychically or mentally feeling one another, but sensing their presence and affect upon the countless Time Streams a Time Lord disturbed by their mere existence in the universe. A spider did not feel the fly, but it felt the ripples it made on its web. As stars in the night sky, you could feel a Gallifreyan's light from years away. Their sheer presence created songs in time, a chorus of adulation and triumph and-

The Doctor had stood at the end of the Time War and listened as the sky fell to silence. One by one, the stars had gone out. The song had ended, and so had his people. Gone. Just like that and, again, standing alone in his Tardis, Rose a universe away, he was haunted by the dead sky about him.

Was silence and death all there was to be for him?

A Time Lord alone in the world was a terrible thing. A Time Lord with nothing but hush in the vast cosmos of the universe was maddening. So, he would run. He would run and discover and fight and carry on because, in those little moments of rush and adventure, he could pretend his universe, for a glimmer, wasn't silent.

The Doctor was excellent at pretending.

Almost as good as he was at running.

It came when he switched the Tardis online. A chime. An echo. A ghost. In the back of his mind, a purr, a small, tiny buzz. The Doctor shuddered it off. Of course the Time Streams would hum, they always whined when a Tardis was active, singing in the influence on them that was to come. Sliding to the control panel, he hesitated over the buttons as he pondered his next location. Somewhere rowdy. Somewhere _loud._

The Tardis lurched. No… Not the Tardis. The Doctor stumbled, barely managing to grab onto the atom insulator knob before he fell to the grated ground of his Tardis.

"Something's not right."

The Time Streams weren't humming, no, what where they doing then? What was that resonance? It was growing? What-… They were… They were singing! He felt it then. A burst. A surge. A rupture. Light and song and rhythm chanting in the silent void. The birth of a star-… Not a star.

_A Time Lord. _

The Doctor heaved himself up, trying to make sense of the sound, the feel, and the Tardis in front of him. So long in the silence, he had forgotten what the song sounded like. But, oh, wasn't it beautiful! Raucous and sunny and… Frantic.

Terrified.

It was lively and new and fresh and, yes, young. Very young. And scared. So scared. Confused._ A first regeneration._ An instant when a Gallifreyan first connected to the Time Streams, first felt the infinity of life, and saw the universe as it truly was. It was a hard process, dangerous, the Gallifreyan was left open like a wound in the cosmos, unable to close themselves off to the magnitude of the Time Streams without guidance from older, wiser Time Lords. Left open as they were, unable to control what they did or didn't see from Time itself, they lost their minds. Became husks. Burnt out.

The Doctor's first regeneration had left himself almost mindless for fourteen days.

Moreover, they left themselves out in the open. A shining beacon. Time Lords, after all, weren't the only ones capable of sussing out the Time Streams, to navigate and taste, though others did it less refined. And a regeneration produced mass amounts of power. Power other races and species would want to use and exploit. _Suck out. _A giant battery glowing in the dark screaming for someone to look and take.

But how?

It was impossible. Gallifrey was _gone_. His people were _gone._ His home was _gone_. Yet, here was a song of a Time Lord birthed from fear. A trap? Possibly? Unlikely. No one could fake this sort of effect on the Time Streams. There really was a Gallifreyan out there, somewhere… Terrified. In pain. In danger.

Where?

The Doctor couldn't tell. They had not affected the Time Streams yet. They had not altered a timeline. He could feel no pull on a thread to trace back. There was no fluctuation to see and, therefore, see where they were.

Somewhere, across time and space, due to the actions of the new Gallifreyan, a Weasley stumbled and a table was knocked over.

A little table holding many small, precious artifacts. A little Russian snow globe amongst them, smashing on the floor. A snow globe a tiny old lady was supposed to buy in a flea market in a small little Scottish village, and eventually, knock over herself, chase it as it rolled away from her, and, subsequently, trip over it and break her neck on her own corner table. Yet, the snow globe no longer existed. The lady in paisley wouldn't trip. She would live.

Her Time Stream shifted.

The Doctor felt it.

"21st Century earth! Beautiful earth! Wait… Scotland! Yes! Scotland! 1998!"

Laughing almost violently, the Doctor tossed toggles, battered buttons, cranked nozzles and finally, hand on the switch, he grinned.

"Hold on a little longer, the Doctor's making a house call. Allons-y!"

With a thrumming whirr, the Tardis took off spinning. For the first time in so long, the universe crooned and the Doctor's world burst to life with a single hymn.

* * *

**Woo or Boo?**

**Updates: **I really wasn't expecting the reception this fic got lol. So I really would, firstly, like to thank you all for your incredibly kind words. I hope this chapter lived up to what you were hoping for! I should be, if all goes well, updating this fic on Sundays or Mondays, so there should be a new chapter each week.

**Important Notes: **I know we didn't get much of the Doctor this chapter, and what we did get was very sparse, and I won't lie, we don't get very much of him next chapter either, but after next, he's glued himself to the plot, so expect lots of running, time-madness and blue-box shenanigans. Hermione's P.O.V will also be a staple for the next chapter, definitely, and a big part of the third chapter, but after that, we get good ol' Harry's P.O.V, and we will be switching between viewpoints. So I hope you're looking forward to that. It's just currently, with what I have planned to happen, Hermione's viewpoint is the best lens to work through.

As for the Master, he is coming, I promise, he's just taking his sweet time in doing so lol.

I also really want to stress, for a moment, how many liberties I am taking with Gallifreyans and Potterverse. **This is a complete AU**. I am heavily meddling with canon in both worlds. I know this annoys some readers, so I really wanted to make it clear before we carry on, so, if you are one who dislikes this sort of thing, you can jump ship early. For example, River Song does exist in this fic, but she will not be the Doctor's wife, or a Child of the Tardis.

I am also debating on whether I should add Missy to the mix or not, so, if you have an opinion on that one, and wouldn't mind helping a poor fanfic writer out, please drop it in. I would much appreciate it.

Ramblings over! _**Thank you**_** all** for the favourites, follows and the lovely reviews! If you could spare a moment or two, and wish to feed the ever greedy muses that natter on my shoulder, please drop a review. Have a great week!


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER TWO:**

**The Assistant's Revenge**

_**Part Two**_

* * *

The Assistant's Revenge: _The Assistant's Revenge is a transposition illusion in which two performers change places._

* * *

_**Godric's Hollow: 4**__**th**__** May 1998. **_

_Hermione Granger's P.O.V_

Albert Einstein once described time as a relative illusion. Time and speed, he said, were directly correlated, and this, in special relativity, was known as time dilation. In short, the faster something goes, the slower time passes. The slower something moves; the faster time turns. Of course, scientist's ran with this little golden nugget, for, if something as constant and crucial as time was malleable, what else could possibly be?

If true, it also demonstrated something very valuable. Time, or our experience of time, which was completely different to the subject itself, had more to do with our own subjectivity than any necessary feature of existence. The time we perceive is, through the clockwork workings of our human minds, at a basic level, vastly different than time's innate behaviour in the universal magnitude. To a human, it was personal. Past, present, future, nothing but perceptions on how people recognized the stream of existence, and for each individual, it changed.

Hermione Granger, nestled in the relics of Godric Hollow with an unconscious Harry who was slowly but surely getting worse, and an exhausted Ron, thought yes, time _must_ be subjective. It had been six hours since they had left Remus and McGonagall behind. Six hours of running. Constant moving. Six hours of watching her friend get hotter and hotter and hotter, in some case, still sleeping, babbling to herself in that language Hermione couldn't understand. Six hours of not knowing what to do but to keep pushing because, blimey, _they _kept coming.

It was proving to be the longest six hours of Hermione's life.

Grimmauld Place was the first location they had entrenched themselves within. Hermione had thought, perhaps naively and a touch arrogantly, due to the fidelius charm placed upon the decrepit and derelict building, there was no possible way, moving statue or not, those angels could find them. It had been safe for all but thirty minutes. One thousand and eight hundred seconds to catch their breath. Then the stone angel came crashing through the back door and the trio had to run. Again.

They had tried the Weasley home next, but upon Ginny noticing an angel in the gardens, creeping up, Ron rightfully afraid for his family, the trio had made a quick withdrawal after leading the damned thing through the woods with timed blinks and stares.

The angels were everywhere.

They were skulking in the forbidden forest. They were watching among the crowds of Gringotts. They lurked in the shadows of Knockturn alley. They stood vigil on the roof of the Ministry. Wherever they went, wherever they ran to, the angels were there, watching and waiting. Even Spinner's end was a no go.

Hermione had never felt so useless.

They had attempted everything too, to halt the onslaught. Spells. Hexes. Charms. Bloody hell, Ron had even smashed one over the head with a mollis petram, the soft rock potion, they had discovered and pilfered from Snape's old childhood home, which was meant to melt stone!

It only made it wet.

How long had it been since Hermione last slept? Merlin, it must be coming up to the two-day mark by now. Two days with no sleep. Fresh from war. Hunted by sculptures. Slouched on the floor near Harry's unconscious form strewn over the couch of Godric Hollow's living room, Hermione felt desperation suffocating her. Dense and cloying like sinking in a tar pit. Warily, she reached out, took Harry's sweltering hand into her own, leant in close, and did the last thing she could think of doing on the wings of a whisper. The last thing that, before, always seemed to work.

Ask Harry for help.

"Harry, wake up. I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. We're running out of places to hide. Come on, Harry. Wake up. I'm not like you, I can't think outside the box. I can't do the impossible. I can't-… I can't save the day like you can. So, please, Harry, if you can hear me, if there is even a scrap of my friend left in there, please… Please wake up and help us. _I need you_."

Nothing. Not a snore, not a wince, not so much as an errant tic. Harry slumbered on. To add insult to injury, on the exhalation of her breath came that horrid golden light raising and swerving to the ceiling like a wisp of dazzling smoke. Hermione slumped; eyes screwed closed at the bite throbbing in her chest. It couldn't end like this. _No._

Plucking herself up off the floor, dusting down her jeans and tugging on the hem of her knitted jumper, Hermione held her head high and proud. She was Hermione Jean Granger. She was the brightest witch of her age. She had survived a _war_. She wouldn't let some fucking garden ornament swan in and rob what little she had. If that meant, for one single day, she had to be in Harry's shoes, walk the path she typically ambled, well, call her bloody Dorothy because she would get to that yellow brick road and see her friend to safety.

_No-win situations don't exist Hermione, only stumbles before you reach home. _Harry had told her that once. Clammy. Bleeding. Hobbling in the remnants of the Chamber of Secrets, right before she had strolled to her lonely, not-so-lasting death. Of course, Hermione suspected Harriet got that titbit of wisdom from a fortune cookie, but the sentiment was what really mattered. _There was always a way. You just had to keep trying. _

There had to be a weakness to these angels Hermione was not seeing. Or, perhaps worse, she_ was_ seeing, but not exploiting. Nothing, not even the great Albus Dumbledore or Tom Riddle, was infallible. To know someone or somethings' vulnerabilities, you had to know the thing itself. So, what did Hermione know about these angels? They were made of stone. Magic did not work. They travelled fast, quicker than possible. They froze only when you looked at them. They-

"What are these?"

Jolting out her introspection, Hermione squinted behind her to Ron. She could barely see him through the gloom, standing by the dim hearth as he were, haloed by the balmy gilded glow, his freckles looking like gold dust in the fire light. The fireplace was the only thing they were willing to risk lighting, still unsure whether these angels tracked by sight.

Constant vigilance.

Wandering over, Hermione glanced down to his large hands to spy his pale fingers fiddling with something. Or, more appropriately, somethings. Plural. Two. Gold. Rounded. Etched with swerves and circles and balls and loops. Hermione kindly took them from Ron and placed them back on the mantel, resting them up against the wall by the aged photo of a laughing, dimpled redhead and a grinning, lanky bespectacled man. Back where they belonged.

"They're a muggle invention called a pocket watch. They were Harry's parents. She doesn't like people touching them."

The last time they were here, hunting for Horcruxes, Harriet had done what Hermione just had when the inquisitive witch had begun to search the living room for clues. _Leave 'em be, 'Mione. They're just pocket watches. Nothing special. They're all I have left… The Ministry confiscated everything else, even their wands, after their… After Tom… That night. Just… Leave them be. _

Satisfied with the answer, though it was no real answer at all, Ron scrubbed at his eyes with the ball of his palm, bracing one hand against the mantel to lean heavy on the fireplace. His finger's tapped at the wood, hammering in a swift turn of thumps. He was becoming antsy. Irritated. Twitchy. _Tired. _They were all so incredibly, exceptionally tired.

"Do you think they've stopped coming now? Those… statues? It's nearly been an hour since we last saw one."

Hermione shook her head.

"Best give it a few more just to be safe."

For a stretch, there was only silence. Silence and the pleasant sound of fire crackling, hissing and spitting. Hermione closed her eyes, pretended she could not smell the scent of damp and decay, dust and dirt. So close to the fire, she could imagine she was back in Gryffindor's common room. A book in her lap, Ron and Harriet on the rug beside her, chuckling over a game of wizarding chess or exploding snaps.

They would be heading to bed soon, eager for lessons in the morn. Ron would whinge and grumble about going to sleep on an empty stomach. Hermione would be writing the last lines of her essay due two months from now. Harry would be sneaking out, preparing for the next great adventure, or her latest prank on a poor unsuspecting Slytherin. She did so adore a good practical joke.

"It just doesn't end."

Ron's voice flowed over her like a wash of frigid water. Hermione's eyes broke open and the image was gone. All that affection, all that joy, all that blissful familiarity, gone with a blink. The living room was cold and dark and woeful. The abrupt drop from fantasy to reality soured her. Her scowl was fierce. Her tone piercing. Her resentment unwarranted, yet real all the same.

"What?"

Ron sharply glanced to her, and it was only with this movement Hermione realised he had been gazing at Harriet's sagged form, as lost in his own mind as Hermione had been in hers. Perhaps, just maybe, he had not meant to speak at all. Perhaps, just maybe, they were all a little on edge. Perhaps, just maybe, right now, all they had were thoughts. Perhaps. Maybe. Possibly.

There was never any indisputability when it came to Harriet Potter, as time was never conclusive. Birds of a feather, Harry and time. Always flowing, quasi-inconceivable, semi-implausible. Perhaps Hermione could create her own theory of relativity. Harry-dilation. The closer you got to her, the faster, more hectic, more… Filled life was. The further away you drifted, when she wasn't there beside you, life seemed to… Stand still. Become stagnant. End.

"Don't get me wrong, I love Harry as much as the next person. I'd die for her if need be. She's my bloody best mate. Has been since we were eleven and she sat opposite me on the Hogwarts express and we stuffed ourselves full of sweets. I was her first friend, and she was mine. But…"

Ron flushed hotly, turning a surprising tint of scarlet that matched his ginger curls. Hermione let his words hang in the air for a moment or two, gliding across the distance between them like rolling fog distorting the scope of the sky from where it kissed the earth. Finally, she picked up the thread he left dangling.

"But it feels like you're always ten steps behind?"

Ron drooped against the mantel, head flopping to his chest as a great breath, teeming to the brim with tacit feeling and long since concealed thoughts simmered out of him and into the stillness enveloping them. Hermione knew what was coming, knew what Ron was going to ultimately say, as she knew her own notions that she pretended didn't exist. She knew and she wanted him to stop. If he said it, if he spoke it into being, it made it all so heartbreakingly… Real. Real and unavoidable. Yet, she didn't move to stop him. Hermione was tired of running.

"Harry… I can't keep up, 'Mione. I don't think anyone can keep up with Harry forever. There's always something, isn't there? Somewhere to run. Something to fight. Some great war to win. There's no… Peace with Harry. It's one thing after another, after another, after another and the worst… The absolute worst…"

Ron kicked away from the mantel, ran a trembling hand through his shaggy copper curls, refused to face her, refused to look her in the eye as he said what neither of them ever could before.

"You can never hate her for it. Harry is not like _us_. She's fire and fervour and everything extreme. The heart of a blazing sun. You want to stand in the sunlight. You want to shine as bright. You want to be as high in the sky too. Yet… Yet you can't. Oh, it's not our fault and it's definitely not Harry's. She can't help being the way she is as we can't help being the way we are. Still, you can't keep up, but you always try to. She pulls you in. Closer and closer you get. Only, do you know what happens when you get too close to the sun, Hermione?"

Periwinkle blue clashed with salted caramel, the sky and the earth meeting in that special place of far away, as Ron finally met her gaze.

"You _burn_."

There was no malice in his voice. No fury or sorrow either. It simply was. You jump, you land. You clap your hands; it makes a noise. You swim, you get wet. You get too close to Harriet Potter, you burn. Inevitable. Hermione was exhausted, and she was no longer talking of being simply tired. It was an unexpected startling comprehension that Hermione didn't know how much longer she could keep going. Oh, she could go days without sleep. She could walk to the ends of the earth if that was what was needed. She could wave her wand and waste her magical core to near depletion. Yet, how much longer could she keep to Harry's side and not fall behind?

Because Ron was right.

Harry… Harry was something _other. _She wasn't confined by human constraints. She was nothing short of a force of nature. A relentless, moving, drive. She never asked you to follow. She never asked you to join. She never asked you to come. She never needed to. You just _did._ The wind never asked the leaves it blew away with it either, and still, the leaves flew for a while or two, caught in the magnificence of the breeze. Nonetheless, those leaves had to fall at some point. It was the law of the universe. The leaves would flutter to the ground, miles from home, and that wind would carry on, because, as the leaves could only fly for a brief moment of time before they had to come back down, where they belonged, the wind could never stop its journey.

Hermione felt that quivering flap of a falling leaf deep in her gut. Suddenly, she could see it all too clearly. One day, Harry would be too fast for her. One day, Hermione wouldn't be able to keep up. One day, one she felt was sooner rather than later, Harry would… Harry would carry on without her, and Hermione would, no matter what, have to let her friend go. You couldn't trap wind, you couldn't hold it still, and even if you could… Why would you do something so terrible?

Hermione knew this. Ron knew this. Maybe they had both known this for a long time now. Perhaps since both had first met the strange, unimaginable, impossible girl. Their time with Harry was always meant to be short but sweet. One day, they would have to watch their best friend go somewhere they could not follow.

But not _this_ day.

"And yet, burn we will because, Merlin, can you imagine life without the sun?"

Ron chuckled.

"No. And that's the catch, isn't it? Can't live with her, can't live without her. I really will miss the way Harry can't say dia-"

A bell from the hallway jingled. Hermione's shoulders stiffened at the noise. Magic might not work against these statues, but by the sound of it, traps that a six-year old could craft did. A tatty bit of yarn, an old bicycle bell and a notice-me-not charm did what a Bombarda to the face could not. Give the trio time. Wands in rigid hands, Ron took the lead towards the living room door with Hermione tightly trailing in the back. As agreed, Ron blinked on the even counts, Hermione on the odd.

There it was. _Tony_. Well, the angel Hermione had mentally nicknamed Tony, standing vigil in the previously dark and empty hallway, reaching out with a clawed hand. She knew because he had a crack in his sculpted dress, right by his sandal clad right foot. That, so far, equalled three. Tony with the splintered toga. Molly with the moss on her shoulder. Frances with broken fang.

"I'll watch it, you get Harry and we'll-"

Ron would never get to finish that sentence, as two searing hands fell upon the duos shoulders. Hermione screeched, Ron jumped, and a startling twisting pull and the almost shrill crack of apparition pulled them away from the misery and misfortune of Godric's Hollow.

They landed in a heap. A disorientated, nauseous mess. On reflex, Hermione scuttled away, heart beating a mile a minute as Ron cussed and cursed boisterously beside her like a feral alley cat dumped in a bucket of water. Charred stone beneath her fingers. The fresh smell of highland air. A familiar thrum of magic around them.

Hogwarts.

And just as Hermione knew there would be as she snapped her head around to the wall behind them, there Harry was, sliding down said wall. She looked, well, there was no polite way to say one looked like a corpse. Her skin shone with the glistening sparkle of sweat, her brows pulled down tight in pain, new silver irises gunmetal black by blown pupils, and her lips, nearly as pale as her ashen high cheeks, were flurrying in mumbles of that bizarre language that, for a flash, made Hermione think of the pocket watches' engraved faces. Shaking her head to wrangle in her whirling thoughts, to regain her bearing, ignoring a still cursing Ron, Hermione forced herself to a stand.

"Morgana, Harry! Give us a bit of a warning next time! They're here too! We need to be somewhere else! They can-"

Harry had stopped speaking now, whether because she knew Hermione and Ron could not understand her, she could not understand them, or because her straining, hoarse voice box refused to emit anymore noise was debatable. However, just as her eyes began rolling back into the far recess of her skull, she did lift one nimble hand and pointed down the narrow, blackened corridor before the limb crashed back to her side with a slap against her thigh. What the hell was she going on-

A burnt hallway.

There was only one place in Hogwarts that had been burnt. One place where a fiendfyre had been cast by an idiot who did not understand the unpredictability of the spell and close quarters meant total destruction. One place where, only a while ago, Ron, Hermione and Harry herself had to escape while it burned down around their heads.

Laughing jarringly, so much so that Ron slipped as he tried to stand at the surprising noise, Hermione dashed for Harry, clasped her sizzling face between her hands, and promptly laid a sloppy kiss on her clammy brow.

"You bloody genius, Harry!"

Ron spluttered.

"What's happening? Hermione, where are you going? Hermione!"

Yet, Hermione was already off, marching down the hall. Seventeen steps down, as the black stone turned dull and grey, free from the mark of the fiendfyre, she abruptly swerved back and trudged the opposite way back to a bewildered Ron and a partially unconscious Harry. Again, she turned. Again she walked. Again, she thought of what they needed. Help. Against the angels. A weapon, perhaps. Help, a safe place to be. Somewhere to hide. Somewhere far from the reaches of the statues. Help, for Harry, who was so sick and ill. Something, a book maybe, that would know what was wrong. A potion to make her better. A spell to ease her pain. A doctor. Anything.

The door appeared.

Ron chuckled.

"Of course, the Room of Requirement!"

* * *

**_Anyplace lost in Time and Space…_**

_No one's P.O.V_

The Tardis was no more than two hundred years, five intergalactic wars and three solar systems away from Scotland 1998, so close, when a mighty screech ripped through the atrium. Unexpectedly, the Tardis brutally pitched right. The man inside held on as he endured the roll and rock, casting a clever eye to the lofty singularity pillar to see it strumming a ferocious blue. Punching a few buttons and jamming the coat hanger into the relativity slot, the man yanked up the removeable view-screen and tapped away.

"Now, what was that about?"

The screen, snapping and flickering out of focus, revealed a string of pulsing golden lines swerving, veering and dipping through each other until, there, a vast weave of wonderful thread resembled that of a spider web. In the middle of the tangled mess, a little blue dot dropped down out of the golden line it had been tracing. Another roll of the Tardis, another jolt of the blue dot dropping down, falling. They were roving off route. Something was pulling them. If this continued, the Tardis would no longer land in January 1998, but… Yes. May or June.

"That shouldn't be possible."

The whirr of the Tardis roared out.

"Oi! Language! Can't you see I'm trying? Maybe if we-"

The Tardis violently twisted as it was yanked from the Time Stream and plunged headfirst into another.

* * *

_**Hogwarts: Room of Requirement: 4**__**th**__** May 1998. **_

_Hermione Granger's P.O.V_

With Ron hovering over her shoulder, so close she could feel his breath fluttering the rambunctious curls that had escaped her bun, Hermione palmed the handle of the door. She didn't know why she hesitated there, a chilling flare of caution nipping at the nape of her neck, but she did. Oddly, she thought this was it. If she opened the door, she would never be able to shut it again. _Everything would change._ There would be no going back. When she opened that door, that one day would come and Harry would go and-

Hermione resolutely stamped the feeling away, and as she did so, she thought, faintly, she could hear the whirr of an… Engine? Something that sounded like a fading purr. Silly. She was being daft. Of course, it was to be expected. She had, after all, had one hell of a week. Squaring her shoulders, Hermione twisted her hand and threw open the door. The room was small this time, condensed and almost claustrophobic, dark too, as Hermione moved in carefully with Ron keeping close to her back. So small it could really only house one object. One towering, square, decidedly blue object.

A muggle police box.

There… There was an actual police box in front of her. Hermione didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. A police box! Was Hogwarts laughing at her now too? An empty fucking police box? That was Hogwarts answer to Hermione's plea for help? A bloody joke? Harry lay, possibly, dying, the girl who had fought with her life for this school and everything it stood for, and here it sent her something that belonged in a museum?

Hermione edged closer, close enough that she could lift her hand and touch the police box's door, which she did. Cool. Crisp. Silent. Not a drop of magic to it, from what she could sense. A muggle police box. Thank the founders for their infinite wisdom in creating this-… This… This… Bloody joke of a-

The door shot open. Hermione hopped back, banging into Ron, who barely managed to keep the two balancing upright as he grappled with her waist. A head popped out from the partly open door.

"Who are you?"

The man demanded with a fierce pout. He slipped out the police box and shut the door behind him with a click. Hermione floundered. He was a tall fellow, angular and leggy like Harry was, well, _now. _He was dressed like a muggle too, but something was… Off about it. A pressed stripped suit, a billowing beige coat and a pair of tatty… Converse shoes. Who wore converse with a suit? His chestnut hair was chaotic, as if he couldn't stop running his hands through it. His features were wiry, a touch too sharp, noble, but with a poignant scope of wily that made the lithe man look fox-like. Hiding in the creases and dips of his face, the small places of in between, Hermione thought she saw the hectic madness, thankfully without the dose of megalomania, that strongly reminded her of Barty Crouch Jr.

"Who am _I_? Who are _you_? What are you doing here? How did you get in? You shouldn't be here."

He was in movement, fast, nippy, dipping his hand into his breast pocket and dragging free a wand. No. Not a wand. Wands didn't come in metal. Metal that, with a clack, elongated and started beeping and blinking blue light as he scanned her with it with a flick of his wrist. Ron grasped her shoulder, jerked her back, as he lifted his wand to aim at the strange, strange man. If he _was _a man at all. Perhaps he was a ghost? The metal rod did nothing but buzz and wink, as the man flipped it up and stared hard at the pulsing light. Then… Then he smiled. Wide. Toothy. Wonkily.

"Me? I'm the Doctor. And you, you're a witch. Oh, put that stick away, boy. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm presuming this is Hogwarts? Helga always did like shoving me into cupboards. Cranky in the morning, that woman, but a blasted good cook! Best shepherd's pie I've ever had. Still, how did _you_ pull me out of the Time-Stream? That shouldn't be possible… Let's see…"

Licking the pad of his forefinger, he pointed it up into the air before, again, he licked it. As if he was sampling fine wine, he swirled the taste around his mouth. Hermione startled at his sudden clap and husky chuckle.

"Ah, the Room of Requirement! So that's how you did it. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. You humans never stop surprising me."

The man, this… Doctor, seemed genuinely impressed, nearly amazed, by it all as he span around the room, eyeing the enclosed walls about them. Hermione shook her head as she tried to clear her mind of this bizarre meeting.

"You know of the Room of Requirement? Never mind, it's not important. Please, if you're a doctor, you can help Harry. She's gone through-"

The man cut her off with a dazzling grin and a jaunty wiggle of his head.

"I'm not _a_ doctor. I'm _the_ Doctor. Big, astronomical difference. And of course I know where I am! It would be very strange if I didn't know something I built, now, wouldn't it? Wait."

He was upon her. In an instant, he was there. Nose to nose, nostrils flared as he took in a slow, intense breath. Ron's wand began to move in a twist, still aiming at the Doctor, and Hermione shot her own hand out, clutched Ron's wrist securely, she forced the hand down to their side. Strangely, police box, rants, and the swift change to seriousness aside, Hermione had the instinctual feeling this man, this Doctor, wouldn't hurt them.

Hogwarts must have brought him, out of all the things it could have formed in the Room of Requirement, for a good reason, surely?

"You smell like regeneration. How do you smell like regeneration?"

The Doctor's voice may have been light, quiet, but there was a substance to his words that bellied the abrupt keen glint in his eye. The fox that caught the sweet scent of a rabbit. Hermione blinked owlishly at him.

"I have no idea what regeneration is, sir, but, please, we need your help. Harry is-"

He retreated back, like a spring jumping back into place, with a bounce and a bobble.

"No, it's definitely not either of you two. Couldn't be more human if you tried. So how are you coated in the scent? Mmmm?"

The metal stick was back, however, this time, he was roaming it about the room. A shrill honk shot out of it as it swung towards the door.

"Yes! It's here! _They're _here. How lucky! I lose the Time-Stream just as you two yank me back to it. Now if I can collaborate the-

There wasn't many moments in Hermione Granger's short life when she lost her temper so completely. In fact, she could name them all on one hand. The time she decked the ferret. The time she fired the Avifors spell at Ron. The time she stood yelling at Harry's hospital bedside because, again, she had run off by herself and nearly died. Yes, Hermione losing her temper was a rare occurrence, yet, when she did, they all had one thing in common.

People not listening to her.

So, as the Doctor went to step passed her, out into the scorched hallway, as everything she was struggling to say fell on deaf ears, Hermione broke. Sidestepping into his path, Hermione seized the lapels of his coat, white knuckled, and, just for good measure, shook him viciously.

"Listen here, box boy! My best friend died! Died! And then she exploded into golden dust and now she doesn't have her own face and, it seems, she isn't quite dead at all! But she's hurt! She's unconscious and ill and, bloody hell, there's moving statues hunting her! Now, doctor or not, police box or not, the Room of Requirement brought you here because you can help and, so help me Merlin, you will or I will wring your spindly little neck!"

Her shriek rebounded off the walls around them, hollow, echoing. She could hear her own laboured breathing rasping in the shell of her ears, a shallow, scratchy rub. The Doctor's face fell, as if she had shot his dog, and then, just for the hell of it, kicked him in the balls. Shame wriggled angrily in her chest as he gently reached up and unhooked her clenched fists from his coat, softly lowering them down. Merlin, what had gotten into her? Assaulting strange men in dark rooms, her mother, if she wasn't currently obliviated, would be so disappointed.

"Of course I'll help. All you had to do was ask-"

Fury quickly supplanted any spark of guilt. What did he think she had been doing for the last ten minutes? Looking for a weather report from whatever bizarre planet this bloody odd man must had fallen from? Yet, before she could, possibly, scream or box the gangly man's ears in unbridled frustration, his hands stiffened on her own, and suddenly, it was like all he saw or heard was her. It was a peculiar feeling, being the singular, unconstrained, intense focus of a man with such bright, clever eyes. It made you feel contrarily too big and far too small.

"You say she exploded? Golden? Changed her appearance?"

Hermione nodded tentatively.

"Yes. And she's not waking up! Or, at least, staying awake longer than five seconds. And the moving statues are fast and-"

"They look like angels, don't they?"

Once More, Hermione bobbed her head. As the Doctor countered, his voice was far gone, floating, and Hermione had the distinct impression that he wasn't really speaking _to _her, but _at _her. It was a bittersweet feeling. Harry often did the same when a rather exhilarating plan or scheme, or one of her inventions that 'just came to her' waved across her mind and she was too excited not to blather about it for hours, no matter that no one could really understand what she was trying to explain.

Even when she added puppets to the mix.

"They must have felt the same shift I did and come for the feast while the feast couldn't fight back. Oh… _oh dear_."

The Doctor dropped her hands and Hermione felt very, very cold.

"Oh dear what exactly, Doctor?"

There was no smile or crafty grin anymore. No bounce or bobble. He was still. Calm and serious and deadly severe.

"Your friend is in danger. Grave danger. Where is she? I_ need_ to see her."

Immediately, Hermione glanced to Ron from over her shoulder. He stood there, watching, wand still in hand… Alone.

"Ron… I thought you had her?"

Ron's eyes grew wide.

"I don't have her. I thought you brought her in?"

They didn't… They didn't leave Harry, partly unconscious, wandless, out in the hallway, out in the open, in a castle where both of them knew those statues could be, hunting her. No. Because only the most idiotic of morons would do such a thing. Hermione, for all her faults and misgivings, was not a moron. Yet, Hermione and Ron were exhausted. Extremely fatigued. Battle weary. Desperate. And if… _If_ they had, perhaps, forgotten to bring Harry with them when the excitement of finding an answer or help for their mounting problems from the Room of Requirement suddenly cropped up, surely, that wasn't idiocy but enthusiasm?

Oh, Merlin, she _was _an idiot!

"Shite!"

Hermione swore as she sprinted out of the room and skidded into the hallway. She twisted, whirled, gaze searching, falling to the crook of the wall Harry had slid down. It was empty. Disjointedly, she could hear the pounding of footsteps behind her, saw two shadows join her own, but she could not do anything but focus on that small, empty spot.

"She's gone. Oh, gods… She's gone. It's all my fault… I should have… Oh…She's _gone…_"

A hand, too large and agile to be Ron's, soundly patted her shoulder before the Doctor breezed passed and, with his metal stick, scanned the small space Hermione could not tear her eyes away from. The stick bleeped, hummed and then flashed. The Doctor glanced at the shell-shocked pair and grinned that too bright smile.

"Not for long. She went this way!"

Then he was dashing down the hall, rushing around a corner with a flap of his coat, leading to the bowels of Hogwarts, this strange man from a blue box hidden in an impossible room, disappearing from view. Three heartbeats passed before his head was peeping back around the bend, brows raised high as he regarded the pair.

"Are you coming or not?"

He didn't wait for an answer. Gone again in a rush of beige and lopsided grin. Hermione glanced to Ron. Ron glanced to Hermione. The two set off running. Although, Ron huffed and puffed and, as always, groused.

"Just when we had our hands full enough with Harry, another one just like her shows up!"

* * *

**Yay or Nay?**

**Next Chapter: **Harry gets a helping from a man who says he's the Doctor. Ron, Hermione and the Doctor race to find Harry as the angels begin closing in, and, as always, time is never in a straight, orderly line…

* * *

**Note: **So, here's the Doctor's first real interaction, as brief as it was. I really hope I didn't mess up his character too much, as I'm still getting in the swing of writing him. I've also been bogged down with uni work this week, so I haven't had enough time to polish as much as I normally would have. Two essays and a presentation all in the span of three days does not leave much room for anything else, lol. Still, I really wanted to keep to my update schedule, so I thought it was better to post this now rather than wait another week.

**A huge thank you to everyone! **Silent readers, followers, favourite-ers, reviewers, if I could, I would give you all a hug, but I'm afraid my thanks will have to do.

**As always, please drop a review if you have a moment, they keep the muses chattering.**


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER THREE:**

**Scotch and Soda.**

**Part One**

* * *

The Scotch and Soda Trick: _a magic effect involving a copper coin and a silver coin which appear to switch in the spectator's hands._

* * *

_**Hogwarts: The Kitchens: 4**__**th**__** May 1998. **_

_Harriet Potter's P.O.V_

_Dum-dum-dum-dum… Dum-dum-dum-dum… Dum-dum-dum-dum… Dum-dum-dum-dum… Dum-dum-dum… Dum-dum-dum… Dum-dum… Dum-dum… Dum…_

Silence.

Typically, people didn't awake to the sound of silence. Indeed, Harriet thought, it was common to rouse to a noise. A bang on a door. A ringing phone. The clap of a letterbox closing. The tap of an owl pecking on a window. The buzz of an alarm spell. Yet, Harriet Potter was never an ordinary person, was she? And so, it was to the sound of beloved silence, as paradoxical as that was, away from that crushing drumbeat that had plagued her every step since that fateful day on the battlements of Hogwarts, that, for the final time, Harriet woke sprawled across Hogwarts kitchen's cold tile parquet.

Silence and the soothing sense of fingertips pressing into her temples.

Wearily she blinked awake, Hermione's name on the tip of her tongue, vaguely remembering… The headmaster's office? A statue? A _wrong _statue… There was something… A million flashes of images whirling about her mind, some real, some not… Trying to find the needle in the haystack… And nearly jolted right out her body at the face hovering above her.

A man was stooped over her, cradling her face, fingers probing at temple, his own eyes closed in what appeared to be pinched concentration. A man Harry had never seen before. He had a pleasant face. Cheeky. Lined with stubble, the type gained from going three days straight without shaving. His short hair, brown at the roots, was bleached an almost white blond, messy, unruly, in startling contrast to his tatty black hoody.

He was too young to be a professor, too old to be a student, and a complete and utter stranger. Harry went to bat his hands away, perhaps throw a punch, she still wasn't completely feeling _herself, _when one hazel eye peeped open, right at her, gleaming. Her hand halted, hovering.

_Dum-dum-dum-dum… Dum-dum-dum-dum…_

"I really would, if I was you, let me finish putting up these mental barriers. If I don't, with the Time Streams pouring through you as freely as they are, your brain will be fried within the next three hours, love, and we can't have that now, can we?"

His eye slipped shut and… Yes… The drumming stopped once more. Sweet, sweet silence. Harry practically sighed and sagged in relief. A puddle of ginger goop on the floor. Cool respite. She didn't feel so blisteringly hot, so totally confused, like someone had shattered her into tiny self-aware pieces, sand, and scattered her across the universe, so far spread, a million hers seeing and feeling a million things all at once and never at all and-

Human.

She felt a little bit more human again.

"How are you doing that? Stopping the drumming? What-… What _are _you?"

She could feel him. Not just in her mind, the briefest of brushes that felt like black velvet and marble dipped in starlight, but… There. She knew, somehow, someway, she knew he was _like_ her. Yet, that didn't make sense, did it?

Harry didn't even know what _she _was. She knew she was different, as, she supposed, a lion in a world of kittens would know something wasn't quite adding up. She had always known that, deep down, the kind of truth you never acknowledged, the sudden change of face was only the icing on the cake, but everything was so wonderfully baffling. Harry had always adored a good mystery. Still, irrevocably, inside, she knew. He was like her, and she was like him, and there was a universe out there singing in her head and-

Her thoughts were rambling again.

"They won't hold for long. You have to build your own, but they'll last until the Do-… Until you can learn _how _to build your own. Enough time to have you thinking relatively clearly to get yourself and your merry bunch of buddies out of this pretty little mess you've landed yourself in."

His hands fell from her face as he leant back, giving her breathing space, yet hanging close, a bit _too _close. Why was he looking at her like that? Harry struggled to a sit. Her limbs still felt odd, _new_, mismatched and not entirely her own, but she still had enough sense left in her boggled mind to move away from a person who gazed at her like she were a twelve oz prime steak.

"Who are you?"

The stranger grinned at her.

"A… Friend."

He said the word drawlingly sluggish. Deliberate and ill-fitting. The right shoe, but the wrong size. They were friends, yes, according to him, but there was a substance there, thick, weighty, a little bit mushy, Harry couldn't quite understand. Nevertheless, the man in the hoody smirked and shrugged.

"Or, at least, I'm someone who _will _be a friend. In time. After a few murder attempts. Nothing too serious, I promise. You always survive anyway. So, really, what harm did it cause?"

Harry scrabbled for the kitchen table behind her, hauling herself to a shaky stand. Merlin, she could _feel _everything. From toenail to hair strand, she could feel it all. And more. Outside. Invisible rivers, flowing, gushing, flooding, and him, not a river, not a note in a song, like Hermione or Ron, or anybody else… But a melody. The tune, its own tune, a song singing itself into being. Alive. Nerves. Open. Tender. _New_. Everything was so new and it felt as if she had been in a coma her entire life, only now awake in the real world. Away from the hazy dream of before… Before.

It bloody _hurt_.

"That doesn't answer my question."

The man slowly came to a stand beside her. Again, he considered before, anew, his face broke out into an almost blinding grin.

"You can call me… The Doctor. Yes. _Doctor_. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

_That's not a name that is his. _

Harry didn't know how she knew that, but she bloody well did. Whoever this strange, strange man was, he distinctly wasn't this Doctor. Weirdly, she thought the Doctor was out there, at any rate someone who went by the title, somewhere. She thought she heard a hymn, quiet, hushed, just out of reach, weaving through the rivers… Running… It was running… Always running…

Yet, he had helped her, hadn't he? This man who said he was the Doctor but categorically wasn't. Saved her life, if what he said was true about her brain frying which, by how sore and raw Harry currently felt, she was inclined to believe. At the very least, he had brought her time. Time for what? Morgana, she was still so fuckin' muddled.

"You said we're friends, but I don't know you."

The man chuckled.

"Not yet you don't but you will. Come on Magician, you've meddled with it before. Couldn't help yourself from doing so. Not with that tricky Time Lord DNA nagging, and niggling, and nit-picking away in the back of your mind. Given, there's a little less werewolf, soul-suckers and midnight flights this time around, I'm afraid. I know how much you enjoy a good jailbreak."

A fuzzy memory sparked someplace in the darkness of her mind. A howling moon. A griffin between her thighs. Dementors circling. Yet, it was blurry. Woolly. Misty. Her memory, but not really hers at the same time. A different _hers_. Hers, but not hers, but hers all the same, but no, an old her, a her but not her and-

Fuck, it was hard to hold onto. Like trying to wrestle with a revolving ball of air. You snatched it one way, it span another, and it all went seeping out between her straining fingers.

_It's like trying to catch smoke... like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands._

Sirius!

How could she forget?

"Time travel! I know you from the future? Did you come back to help me?"

The man rested on the table beside them, propped by elbow, easy, mellow. Still too bloody close.

"He wouldn't have gotten to you before the weeping angels did if I hadn't dragged you from that hallway your friends carelessly dumped you in, or if I didn't put up those mental barriers. Couldn't have you dying on me before… Well, _everything, _now, can I? No, we have a grand few adventures ahead of us, me, you and him. Great adventures. Just take it easy on me in the beginning, yeah? I won't have my head on straight."

Time travellers, friends who weren't friends yet, murder attempts and soon to be adventures, streams and songs and-… Too much. Yet, one word rang clear and bright. A lone star shining in the black sky of mayhem.

Angels.

It all came flooding back. _She _came flooding back. The lonely childhood. The cupboard. Hogwarts. The war. Sirius. Remus. Her friends. Winning… Dying. Burning. So hot. Gold light. New face. New body. New everything. Moving statues. Friends in danger. Warning. Best she could do. Hope. Apparate. Room of requirement. Kitchen. Stranger who was somehow just like her.

Her friends were in danger.

Harry went to dash passed the man, to the cracked open pear painting that led outside.

"The angels! They're out there… My friends, Hermione, Ron… Merlin, I remember now… They… I need to-"

A warm hand snatched up her arm before she could leave, tugging, stopping. Harry whirled on him, mouth half open, arguments half formed, hot and sizzling on her tongue, only to see the man solemnly shake his head at her.

"They're fine. They're with _him. _You, however, are a different matter. They're coming for you, Magician."

Harry blinked up at him, frowning. Wow, she could really frown with this face, couldn't she? Deep, glowering, and-… And not important right now!

"Well, how do I get rid of them then?"

The blond man chuckled, lush, rich, and promptly waggled a bloody finger at her like a child caught sneaking cookies before dinner.

"Spoilers!"

Harry wrenched her arm from his grasp. In her brief life in this new body, she had learned three things. One, she was lanky, her ungraceful skidding about the place had proven as much. There was a specific… Jiggle to tall people, she found, like the wiggling tentacles of a jelly fish. Two, she, for some reason, was pretty sure she could now do the rumba, step for step. And three, she had a horrid temper.

"So you can alter the timeline by coming back to… To… Build… Do whatever it is you just did, which I am grateful for by the way, but you can't tell me how to get rid of them? The angels? Even if you know? Even if you know how I did it before? Because I must have, if we're friends in the future… If I'm still alive to _be_ your friend. Yet, you can't tell me what I do? Why are you still bloody here then?"

The man wasn't deterred by her sudden ire, in fact, by the glint in his eye, he seemingly _enjoyed _it. Wanker. Ooooh… She swore now? Was that a new thing too? Wanker… Bastard… Tosser… Fuckwit… Nonce… Dickhead… Bitch… And entirely off point. The man tutted at her.

"No, I came back to do what I already did, though I didn't know It was _me _who did it before you said-… Never mind. What's happened has already happened from where I'm standing. You should know that. However, I never told you how to get rid of the angels before, and so, I can't do it now. But I can give you a hint."

He bowed in close, way too bloody close, why did he keep doing that? Didn't he understand personal space? Yet, Harry's hearts still gave an astounding start in her chest. Just who was this man?

"Here's a riddle. When you see me, you also see you. Figure that out, and you'll save your friends."

For a man who talked as much as he did, he had the horrendous habit of not actually saying anything at all. This time, Harry pressed in closer to him, nose to nose.

"I swear, you are singularly the most frustrating man I have ever met. If I ever face you again, I'm going to deck you. Take that as fair warning."

The man laughed. Full bellied, bared teeth, boisterous laughter. Gorged and plummy and boundless. His hand crept up to his jaw, stroking gently, a soft smile, a _real_ smile, supplanting the dying laughter as his eyes drifted somewhere far away. Somewhere Harry couldn't go.

"Huh, so that's why you punched me. I can't say-"

The man was cut off as he started to beep. No. Not the man. The watch he was wearing. The watch, with seven faces, all ticking, all turning, all different, that he squinted down to with a resigned sort of groan.

"He's coming. Our time is up. I have to go. Remember the riddle, and I'll see you soon."

Harry sputtered.

"Where are you going? What do I do about the-"

The man placed his hands upon her shoulders, square and grounded, as silver moons fastened to hazel melting in autumn shades.

"The next time we meet... Ah, to hell with it."

His right hand left her shoulder, settled on her neck, bellow her ear, thumb caressing jawline, and for a split moment, Harry thought he was about to snap her neck. He didn't, of course. He did something much worse.

He kissed her.

Fast. Hard. Hot. It wasn't like the kisses Harry had seen on T.V, or the kind of kisses girls would whisper about in Gryffindor dormitory at night. Time did not slow, there were no birds singing in the background, there was no clandestine orchestra sounding off in her head. Because this was_ real_. Soul shatteringly real. It was shocking. A little bit bruising. His lips were slightly chaffed, warm but rough, and, yes, he did taste of something sweet sprinkled with popping candy.

And all Harry could do was stand there static like those statues hunting her.

It was over before it had truly begun, something bulky shoved into her lax palm dangling at her side, before he was pulling away, grinning that damned grin.

"See you soon love! And make sure you have them on you next time! Oh, and remember the broom closet by Flitwick's office!"

Then he was off, zipping to the open painting, slipping through. Harry blinked. Blinked some more. Blinked just for good measure, and promptly gave chase.

"Wait! Who are you! Where-"

But he was gone. The hallway was silent. Dark. Empty. Slowly, she glanced down to her hand and found a bulging white paper bag. The paper crinkled as she opened it. Her hand dipped in, pulled free something she squished between her fingers with a jiggling bounce, grimacing.

Jelly babies.

The time travelling lunatic had given her a bloody bag of jelly babies.

What in the name of Merlin was all that? How was she meant to save-

She glanced to the kitchen painting at her side, in puzzlement of what had happened only seconds ago in its cosy walls, that entangled bowl of fruit. Pears and apples and pineapples and-

Her reflection from the gilded frame caught her eye. She edged closer. That… That was her? She bobbed her head. Twisted. The reflection copied her every movement. Her reflection.

Reflection.

_When you see me, you also see you._

"Oh, you beautiful bastard! You brilliant, beautiful bastard! Yes!"

The bag of jelly babies fell from her hand to the floor with a thud and a spill. Harry took off down the hall. She had a trap to set, and, once over, if luck was on her side, she may just live to meet that blond Doctor-not-Doctor once more.

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_Thoughts?_

**Note: **I know this chapter isn't quite what I promised last chapter, we haven't reached the Doctor, but I hit a little writing snag in the next part I am still, three bloody weeks later, ironing out lol. Rather than leaving this fic dangling another week, which is what I normally would have done, I thought I would post the first half now, and the next when it's finished, and really hope no one minds too much lol. I promise, the next part is coming, it just needs a bit more tweaking here and there. It's just you guys have been so lovely, I didn't want you all waiting in the dark.

* * *

On that note: **Thank you all. **Follows, favourites, reviews, they all brought a smile to my face and kept me pushing when I hit a little block. If you could, please drop a review, I do read every single one and take on board what you have to say, and hopefully, I will see you all again soon!


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